firebreather - igniting one industry and fueling another

by Kendra Ray

photos by Melany Halgren

“Just looking at the car... it’s making everything real for me now,” smiled Ray Park, just minutes after unveiling the Motor City’s newest addition to a showroom of custom cars during Autorama 2010.

Developed for the upcoming feature film Jinn, the Firebreather made its mark on the automotive scene while fueling concepts for the future of the state’s film industry.

firebreather2-42510 “It’s just a logical union to put them together,” explained Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad, co-creator of the Firebreather and writer/director of Jinn. “The automotive business is something that this country was built upon. We are trying to breathe a little bit of excitement into the car business as well as the movie business.”

Along with an original car, the team behind Jinn is unveiling a concept that is virtually unknown in the Western world. Ahmad’s thorough introduction provides insight on this controversial element of global culture. “It’s an idea that half the world believes in so much so they say, ‘Why are you even talking about them, let alone making a movie about them?’ Because if you talk about them, supposedly they will come to you.”

This potentially halting theory has instead catalyzed the development of the project. Best known for his roles as Toad in X-Men, Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace, and the more recent Edgar on the TV series Heroes, Ray Park was intrigued by the concept Ahmad presented.

This actor/martial artist explains, “There was a familiarity about it… after speaking to AJ (Ahmad) on the phone, I got online, put in 'Jinn' and I saw hundreds of different stories and experiences. Then I got a bit freaked. I had a funny sensation all over me and I thought, ‘I wanna do this movie; this is something that’s captured my imagination.’ I saw the essence of it [when] I was a kid just growing up in Malaysia and China.”